Tom MacSweeney: Monkstown locals worried about removal of 'green island'
Monkstown school pupils protesting the planned removal of the grass island in the centre of the village.
“The proposed change to the road layout would be a serious threat to road safety for parents and schoolchildren.”
That warning is contained in a petition from parents and guardians of children attending Monkstown National School – Scoil Barra Naofa – which has been sent to the chairperson of the Carrigaline Municipal District committee of Cork County Council and his fellow councillors.
The disagreement between the riverside village community of Monkstown and the Council over planners’ proposals to remove the grass island in the centre of the village, which has been ongoing for some time, has widened.
As the school re-opened after summer holidays, the chairman of Monkstown Heritage Committee, Bob McLaughlin, said the warning must be taken seriously by the Council, its officials and the councillors.
Parents were surveyed for their opinion. There were over 400 signatures to the petition. The school’s Parents Association sent the result to the councillors, stating: “These are the people most acutely aware of the danger and they are unequivocally behind this petition. We are requesting that the island be retained permanently in its present position. It protects our children from the traffic on the main road.”
According to the heritage committee, while it has been able to meet councillors, they have not been given a meeting with the Council planners and officials who devised the scheme for Monkstown village which they are opposing.
Concern has been expressed also in recent weeks about the effect on the activities of the village’s sailing club at the Sand Quay adjacent to the island.
Mr McLaughlin said there should be more discussion, that there was insufficient consideration given to the village community in the preparation of the plan.
“We would like to meet and come to a solution which can be agreed by all concerned. That is possible. Our village concerns must be responded to.”
An interesting historic aside to that ongoing controversy came during the a heritage weekend in the village when, at St John’s Church of Ireland, resident Gay Elmes published an account of how the church came to be built.
“In 1830 Cork newspapers published a tender for the erection of a new Protestant Church in Monkstown. This was an unusual plan as Monkstown was barely a village with very few dwellings. Why did they want a new church?
“It emerged,” he wrote, “that Robert Shaw of Monkstown Castle decided to develop a new village to attract visitors as prospective tenants to leave the city and enjoy the clean bathing waters of Monkstown bay and the beauty of the harbour in the summer months. Most of these would rent or lease houses as roads were very poorly maintained and the safest mode of travel was by boat, or ferry, or by horse and carriage.”
The story of how the church was funded and built is a fascinating account of changed times.
Mr Elmes recalls two brothers who “founded a remarkable dynasty of building architects lasting from 1827 to 1951. William and Henry Hill built the fine classical terraces in Monkstown and changed the face of Cork city after the War of Independence burnt down much of Cork.”
Over the years regattas at Monkstown were raced in front of where the island stands.
In its quarterly review of traffic through the country’s ports, the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) has a special mention for the Port of Cork.
While roll-on roll-off (RoRo) volumes in Republic of Ireland ports increased by 5% year-on-year, it has developed at a higher level than other ports, it would seem.
“The Port of Cork recorded strong growth of RoRo throughput – up 29% – plus 542 units in Q2,” says the IMDO.
The Kinsale Cultural and Heritage Society will mark the 425th anniversary of the Battle of Kinsale with two weekend events, starting this Saturday in a 1601 ‘Living History Display’ at Short Quay, Kinsale.
The following weekend, Saturday, September 26 the society will host a ‘Battle of Kinsale Seminar’ at St Multose Church in Kinsale.
There historians will discuss the Spanish ‘landing’ by sea at Kinsale in September 1601; the subsequent ‘Siege of Kinsale’, and the Battle itself which was a defining part of Irish history.
SEASCAPES PODCAST SEASCAPES is Ireland’s only maritime programme. Listen at: https://tommacsweeneyseascapes.ie or wherever you get your Podcasts. Email: tommacsweeneyseascapes@gmail.com with your maritime comments.
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